- Jurisdiction
- Missouri
Took my Audi to a well known oil change company that starts with JL. Within 2 blocks of driving away after the oil change my car started emitting black smoke from the exhaust and the car was shifting hard and felt like the gears were slipping. Immediately took the car back and told them what it was doing. They claimed there was nothing unusual that they had done but agreed to drain the oil and change it again. After several minutes under the car they came to me admitted that the person who changed the oil had never worked on an Audi and had mistakenly emptied the transmission fluid instead of the oil, then had added 6 quarts of new oil into the engine that still had the original 6 quarts of the oil in it and sent me driving away with no transmission fluid in the car. They then called in the manager in from home to perform the transmission fluid fill up and ensure the oil was properly changed and filled. After doing so the manager flippantly said, "everything should be fine now" but I informed him that the he car would be going into the shop on Monday to be fully inspected for issue they had caused. I also asked that they provide me a write up of exactly what they did to the car which he begrudgingly provided and gave full admission of their major mistake. Upon calling my Audi mechanic this morning, he raised major concerns with several issues that could have been caused by driving with twice as much oil and no transmission fluid in the car and recommended it not be driven to the shop but towed. That is what I did and the car is being checked out now but the mechanic mentioned longer term issues with the transmission or oil leaks that this mistake could've caused but wouldn't necessarily show up right away. For this reason I'm wondering if I should be contacting JL's corporate legal department and filing a formal complaint and provide them the admission letter that their store manager provided. Do I have any kind of right to damages that may not be detectable right now? What if I start having transmission issues or oil leaks 4 months from now. Do I have a case against them then? Is this mistake egregious enough that they would look to settle with me for the cost of the car ($4000) rather than deal with potential legal issues down the road? I spent 3 hours in their shop watching them fumble over each other trying to fix this and then had to deal with getting my car towed today and figure out how to get to and from work without my car for the next day or two and all I've gotten from them was an offer a free oil change. That slap in the face alone makes me want to pursue this further.
Thanks for your time!
Thanks for your time!
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